


The Greatest Swordsman That Ever Lived

by kittydesade



Category: Willow (1988)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-31
Updated: 2011-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-28 13:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every hero had to start from somewhere. Madmartigan started in the mud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greatest Swordsman That Ever Lived

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voksen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/gifts).



"Cowards!"

The boy picked himself out of the mud, spitting hair and blood and more mud out of his mouth. He'd cut his lip on a jagged tooth on the way down and his hair plastered all over his face, and the mud sucked his feet into the ground so he couldn't chase after them. Not that he'd catch them anyway. They had horses, and he had two spindly legs.

He spat anyway, in the direction of their smirking, nasty faces. "Not even a fair fight. Bastards."

Stalking home in an angry uproar was hard when every time you pulled your leg out of the ground to take another step a wet, sucking sound emerged. Not unlike a few other sounds he'd heard coming from around the back of the inn. By the time he got back to the village he was in an even worse mood, and the mud was caked and flaking off his face, hair, and clothes.

"What on earth have you been doing?" his mother shrieked. "And look at your new shirt, all torn..."

"It wasn't my fault! They ..."

"Not one further word. Get upstairs and change your clothes, we've got guests coming."

He stomped up the stairs, shaking the dirt from the rafters and down onto the tables his mother had just cleaned by way of retaliation. There wasn't much in the way of water to wash the mud from his hair, he'd have to go out to the back and dunk his head in the horse trough for that. And the horse trough was _cold._

One of these days, Madmartigan swore to himself, he'd make it out this village. Out of this mudhole, and he'd become so well known his name would be a byword for great deeds and heroism, and then people would stop teasing him that someday he'd grow into it. One of these days.

  


* * *

  


The scrawny, dark-haired boy didn't look like much, next to the tall and broad-shouldered one. But for once he was neither the shortest nor the most awkward, so he decided it wasn't worth worrying about.

The squad captain lined them all up next to each other, looked them over, and proceeded to berate them all in the most foul-tempered and spittle-laden language Madmartigan had heard in his life. He was doubly impressed that the man never seemed to repeat himself, and took notes for future occasions to call people names.

Some of the other boys seemed to take it personal. He looked down the row quickly while the other man had his back turned; one was crying. One stood with his chin up and his jaw squared in that stubborn expression that refused to show any sign of weakness, and certainly no tears. Tears were for girls and babies. Madmartigan jerked his head back to the front just as the squad captain leaned over him.

"Too small!" He shoved Madmartigan square in the chest. "Too young. Go home."

Madmartigan hadn't expected the shove, and he toppled directly over. But it was far from the worst hit he'd taken in his life, and he stood back up again and got into line and ignored the command as though he hadn't heard it. Everyone around him sucked in a breath and waited for him to be clubbed 'round the head or something worse.

Neither a fist nor something worse was forthcoming. The squad captain waited for him to buckle under his glare and frowned when he didn't. "Hmph. Stubborn." He nodded. "Good." And then it was back to berating everyone equally again, insulting their mothers, their intelligence, their looks, their ability, their stamina, their sexual habits, and their life expectancy. Madmartigan did not say he'd heard better swears from the drovers at the inn, both because he hadn't and because he wanted the man to keep talking so he could learn.

Afterwards, the boy who refused to cry caught up with him as they trudged towards the back of the line for rations. "Why didn't you go home when he told you to?" he asked, blunt and open-faced.

"Why didn't you tell him to stop hitting ..." Madmartigan retorted, only it hadn't been much of a hit and he hadn't needed any defending, so he shrugged instead. "Don't want to go home. I wanted to be here, I'm not going to go home. Besides, my mother'd just toss me out again anyway."

The boy's eyes got even wider. "You were thrown out of your home?"

"No. Stupid. I ran away." As good as thrown out, his mother had told him he wasn't fit for anything but washing the pig barn and feeding the horses. Not something he intended to do for the rest of his life. "I wanted to do something great with my life. Have adventures."

"Adventures like this?" the boy looked at him as though he were insane, but with a little spark of hope in his eyes. Madmartigan wondered how many recruiters from this company had used the same speech he'd overheard that night.

"No," he admitted. "Not quite like this. But we have to be trained how to fight before we can have adventures, you know? I mean, I don't know how to use a sword."

"I do," the boy said promptly, pulling himself up straighter. "Well, sort of. My brother taught me."

"Uh-huh."

"He did!"

"Didn't say nothing."

It almost came to blows. The other boy eyed him, jaw jutting and blond braid flipping side to side at the end as they walked. Madmartigan shrugged and lowered his eyes, not too much so he could see the hit coming if it was going to, but enough to ease the other's mind. By the time they got to the line for rations the other boy stuck out his hand. "I'm Airk."

"M--" Too late to make up a name, though. "Madmartigan."

The blond boy laughed. "What kind of a name is that?"

  


* * *

  


Airk hit hard enough to send the rattle of the blade straight up his arms. Madmartigan was the only one who didn't complain about it.

"You fight like a girl," Airk laughed.

Madmartigan snorted. "Clearly you've never fought my sister," and he pressed the attack until Airk had to retreat back against the fence. Airk made a couple of attempts to dodge left or right, blocked at every turn until Madmartigan put the tip of the practice sword to his throat. "And you're still way too fond of that axe."

"I like the axe. Makes me feel like I'm using a weapon." Airk rolled his massive shoulders and shrugged. He'd grown up broad and full of bulk, while Madmartigan had gotten taller and less gangly but still lean for all that. Or maybe it was just when he stood next to Airk.

He snorted. "It makes you slow. You're strong enough, you don't need to toss around a heavy weapon to prove it. You should try one of these," he held up his own broadsword, a hand-and-a-half sword. "Should be about your size, you ought to like the weight."

Airk started to swing it experimentally, and still like his axe. Madmartigan skipped backwards out of the way. "Not bad."

"You stop swinging it like it's an axe instead of a sword, you might get further," he grinned.

His friend grinned too, but with an impatient edge to it. "When did you get to be the weaponsmaster's apprentice, anyway?" Not an idle joke, either, there were rumors that the weaponsmaster would take on Madmartigan and train him up to teach others if he survived his first few campaigns.

"When I started paying attention at practice to his lectures. If you did the same instead of looking around at every passing thing that caught your fancy, you might learn a trick or two." The flat of a discarded practice blade thwacked against Airk's wrist, leaving a sting and a small cut. Airk dropped his sword, cursing.

"When did you pick that up?"

Madmartigan smirked, cast a quick glance around the practice field and shifted his footing to get ready to dodge around the muddy parts. "When you weren't looking at me. Come on, let's go again. This time, pay attention."

He chased Airk around the ring a couple more times after that, getting several touches on him, having to work to keep his footing, but most of his friend's swings went wild. Airk hadn't spent much time on the sword, and it showed. "You're still faster," he grunted, as they stopped bantering and started to sweat.

"I practice more. You should practice against Killean, he's faster than I am." Parry, parry and turn it around into a slashing strike.

"Faster?" Airk grunted, pressing the advantage while he had it. "You want me to practice against someone faster?"

Madmartigan waited until they'd both come to a halt out of exhaustion. "You need the practice," he panted. "And you'll get lazy working with me."

"Don't see how that would happen," Airk muttered, straightening up and forcing himself to strut out of the practice ring just so he could ruffle the still-bent Madmartigan's hair as he passed. Madmartigan glared and threw his sword at him. It bounced harmlessly off one of the fenceposts as Airk laughed and kept walking.

  


* * *

  


He knew it was a bad idea. The moment they both laid eyes on the King's armsmaster's daughter he knew it was a bad idea, and neither he nor Airk could take their eyes away. She only appeared in the Great Hall for a few minutes, coming in to tell her father something and then disappearing down the side corridor again. But she was beautiful, hair falling down in waves over her back that caught the light and threw back all kinds of ruby, copper, and bronze glow. She held herself well, too, straight-backed and head high and it wasn't until later that Madmartigan realized she probably practiced with her father along with the rest of the soldiers in the castle. No wonder her posture looked familiar.

Madmartigan started to rise from his seat. Airk clapped a meaty hand on his forearm and held him there. "I saw her first," he muttered, thereby shattering any hopes Madmartigan might have held of either of them being reasonable.

"You saw--? I saw her first." He moved to yank his arm out from Airk's paw, but the other man leaned on him until he sat back down with a grunt.

"Uh-huh. Have another mug of ale for me," Airk patted him on the shoulder and walked down the corridor they'd seen her disappear into, grinning over his shoulder at his friend. Madmartigan muttered a few choice words about Airk and his breeding and ancestry before having that mug of ale, per request, of course.

Even so, Airk crawled into his bunk not long after Madmartigan, grumbling. Madmartigan smirked against the blanket, then leaned over. "She turned you down, didn't she."

"Turned me down? She damn near sliced my..." Airk's complaint descended into incoherent grumbling. Madmartigan snickered himself to sleep.

It gave him some sort of clue as to how to approach her, at least. Not the ham-fisted yet strangely effective way Airk did, but at practice. Spending more time against the wooden practice dummies, paying close attention to his form and his blade control, and it was only a couple of days before she wandered in to replace the swords on the racks with honed ones, all the nicks polished out and the few bent places straightened. She leaned against the wall and watched him, arms folded.

"Do I meet with your approval?" he asked her afterwards, grinning, but only after he'd replaced the sword and started stretching out. She took her time answering, too.

"You'll do," she nodded. "At least you're more than competent, unlike most of the army. You could be better, though."

At that he did lean back a little, eye her with a puzzled frown. "Bet--" No, she was the armsmaster's daughter, and he'd _seen_ the armsmaster at work. She would know better when she saw it. "Are you offering to teach me or..." And she'd already picked up a blade. Now he knew why Airk had come back to his bunk muttering. Somehow this had gone from him attempting to bring the woman to his bed to the woman nearly chasing him out of the practice ring.

"Put up your sword," she smiled. "If you're not too tired."

  


* * *

  


He put up his sword. He put up several swords, and they chased each other around the ring, then they chased each other around her bedroom. It was more than a little fun, and not something he had expected out of his tenure in the king's army. Swordplay excited her as much as it did him, both in and out of bed, which also turned out to be their undoing.

Her father caught them at it in the practice ring, nothing that couldn't be smoothed over if it had been someone more sympathetic to their liaison but he was too fiercely protective of his daughter, and some of the king's guard had accompanied him. One of them, it later turned out, was enamored of the woman himself and that was the end of that. Madmartigan was hauled before the king in chains, lectured till he felt ready to drop from exhaustion on the subject of his perfidy, his lewd behavior, and his betrayal of everyone's honor including parties Madmartigan felt weren't involved at all.

If she had any opinions on the subject he didn't hear about them. She wasn't allowed to see him any longer, and no messages got to him.

Madmartigan spent his first day as a lone mercenary getting blind and stinking drunk. The next few days he spent on the road, swinging branches for what he called practice and what was really more like venting his anger on some hapless trees. He found a town with a caravan that was just about to leave, hired on as a guard, but the next town over the inn had damned decent ale for a backwater and it was six months before he resurfaced.

By then he had a reputation, not quite the town drunk but something more dangerous. A swordsman who had a talent for the blade only rivaled by his talent for spending all his pay on strong drink at the local tavern and getting into very expensive and very destructive fights. He never stayed too long, except at the last town when he caught a glimpse of red-gold hair disappearing around the door of the smithy.

"Hey, wait a--" he started, stepping forward.

"You see to paying your bill before you go chasing off?" the innkeeper said. Madmartigan turned back to tell him off, then turned back, but the blacksmith was coming out and locking up and he didn't see her again. Or anyone.

So Madmartigan punched him. It was only fair, the innkeeper had ruined his day, so he had to ruin the other man's. Somehow a brawl ensued, thick and fast enough for him to lose his temper and all it took was one good shove to send one old man at the corner of the fight tumbling into the edge of a table.

Which was how Madmartigan ended up kicking at the bar's of a hanging cage, swinging and staring at his rag-covered toes.


End file.
